Static
by runobody2
Summary: Suddenly I want to laugh because this all seems so unreal. Unreal, like my life has been for years, or maybe it was the time before that was the dream. Silena Beauregard's dying recollections, two-shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson series, or the direct quotes in the middle of this fan fiction. Silena's story was one of my favorites, and this is two-shot centering on her death, from her perspective. R&R, enjoy. Note: I am a beta reader currently accepting stories. Please PM if you want me to beta read one of your stories. Or, you can PM me just for fun.**

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I feel like someone took the world and turned the volume down, and now I'm stuck straining for lyrics just beyond earshot. Edges and angles and faces are blurring into a burning haze, and I want so much to just close my eyes and let the current carry me away. But I strain to keep my eyes open, because I know that soon pain will be a luxury. In the distance, through the crack the acid has made in the corner of my helmet, I see someone- Percy distracting the drakon. For a moment, I feel like my spirit is lifted into the air, and it's like flying, the sensation, like riding on one of the camp pegasi over the strawberry fields, and leaving all my problems behind to grow smaller and smaller. But this time, it is not my problems that grow smaller, but the campers. Suddenly, from my new perspective, I realize how few and how miniscule we are, and then I am sucked back into myself, jarringly, like my back is attached to a rubber band.

But then I see Clarisse, and she is arriving here, and she is yelling at the drakon, asking if it wants death, and now she has defeated it in one minute and two seconds and with a fury only she can hold, a grace that I can only dream of, and I breathe a sigh of relief because my ploy has worked. She's running over to me now, and suddenly I want to laugh because this all seems so unreal. Unreal, like my life has been for years, or maybe it was the time before that was the dream.

She comes towards me, and suddenly I realise that I'm dying, which is strange because a few moments ago, I felt more alive then I ever have. I've never told anyone, but I've always entertained the fantasy of a warrior's death. But even more secretly then that, I've always imagined my death as normal, beautiful and peaceful and mundane. I imagined growing old with Charlie, growing old and having kids and dying in a long, long time, when I'd drunk my fill of life, dying with my family and friends and Charlie around me, when it was far past time and I was ready. But I'm not ready, and honestly I don't think I'll ever be. But I know that Charlie is waiting for me at the end, Charlie, whose death was my fault.

Clarisse is standing over me now. "What were you thinking?" What was I thinking? Honestly, I don't know. But I know that this is my part to play, and my part alone. I try to swallow, but I can't.

"Wouldn't listen. . . listen. Cabin would . . . only follow you." That's true, at least.

"So you stole my armor," Clarisse says in disbelief. "You waited until Chris and I went out on patrol; you stole my armor and pretended to be me." She glared at her siblings. "And NONE of you noticed?"

"All my fault," and I notice that I am crying."The drakon, Charlie's death. . . camp endangered-"

"Stop it!" Clarisse said. "That's not true." But it is. It is so very, very, true, and my dying wish is that is wasn't. No, literally. I open my hand, and there it is: Kronos' bracelet, It's ugly silver sheen somehow free of blood. A wave of disbelief seems to pass among the crowd. Percy speaks.

"You were the spy." I try to nod.

"Before . . . before I liked Charlie, Luke was nice to me. He was so . . . charming. Handsome. Later, I wanted to stop helping him, but he threatened to tell. He promised. . . he promised I was saving lives. Fewer people would get hurt. . . Charlie. He lied to me." But then, what did I expect? I made one mistake, stumble once, and then I just kept falling. I think I feel the stench of deception lift, but maybe that's just my world fading.

Clarisse scowled at her cabinmates. "Go, help the centaurs. Protect the doors. GO!"

I take a breath. It hurts. "Forgive me."

"You're not dying," Clarisse insists. But I am.

"Charlie. . . see Charlie. . ." But then the world withers and the thin curtain of reality falls away. I stand up, and ahead of me I see darkness. And I hear roaring water: the river Styx. I try to go back, but when I turn, there is only static.


End file.
